Yahoo!! Another accomplishment today..As u may know, Korea consists of almost more than 50% of mountains - they love to do hiking, especially ajumma n ajossi. After went for mountain hiking last end of summer with my prof n labmates - and some other mountains before -, I thought I need to go for another hiking since I didnt do any exercise recently n I felt kinda overweight >.< So, today I went to climb Acha mountain with friends from Seoul Tech n Konkuk n also Yonsei Univ.

Our first plan was to climb only Acha Mountain only, which known for its beginner level, since for some of us this was the first-experience in hiking. But turned out that the trail for Acha Mountain wasnt that hard and we decided to going back using trail for Yongma mountain rather than going back. Fyi, Acha and Yongma mountain are connected to each other, and they were used as a fort before.

We started our hiking tour at 8.30am from Achasan station exit 2 line 5, it was quite easy to find the mountain entrance (there’s tofu stall near the entrance, I really wanted to buy that one but it’s closed due to Chuseok :x) Our first stop was pavillion n we’re quite amazed with the view where we could see the hanggang from top. Guess what, there’re also playground and some exercise equipment near that pavillion.

Then we continue to go to top of Acha Mountain. Before reaching the top, we found an ajossi selling hiking equipment near the stairs, then another ajossi open a small restaurant :)) also lots of place to take a pic, and d view was quite breathtaking. Another interesting fact with this mountain is, some part of d mountain is located in Seoul, Gwangjingu, and another part of the mountain is located in Gyeonggido, Guri. And the view from both city was totally different - we could see how packed Seoul it from top, meanwhile there’re not much buildings in Guri and mostly also covered by trees.

We took short break on the top of Acha Mountain - and we found pieces of fortress as well. After enjoying d foot n having some chitchats, we decided to continue our journey to Yongma Mountain which looks not that far (actually it’s far though :)) Near the Yongma Mountain’s top, there’s another playground. A shocking scene was happened, when an ajumma did some shaolin actions and there were big hula hoops around which were played by ajummas n ajossis *we started to think that there’s Kungfu Hustle village near there =))*

On the top of this Yongma Mountain, there’s an ajossi selling for icecream - then we started wondered how can he brings the icecreams to top? and we got more shocked that when we’re going to the way down, there’re lots of restaurants as well hahaha. We took another short break here, and took pics with the landmark and Korean flag. Then we decided to take the trail to Yongma Fountain (strongly recommend u not to follow our decision) instead of taking the trail that directly go to Yongma subway station. We decided to do so since the difference only 300m, but guessed what, the trail was so scary and quite not safe - cliff on our left side. If u dont walk carefully, u could easily fell down from that around 500m height :))

Eventhough they provide rope, that was the hardest trail I’ve ever had, and it was a way to going down so it’s even harder!! Thanks God I brought my hiking stick with me, otherwise I might hurt myself couple times. But the view there was awesome, I cant wait for my friends who brought dslr with him to upload d pics - I didnt dare to take a pic with my cam, dont wanna make it falling down :)) Amazing thing was, there was a guy who passing by the same way with us but he going down while calling n walking in calm way seemed it too easy for him >.<

The end of this mountain trail was the Yongma Apartment complex, n the Yongma Waterfall was located near here. We arrived around 1pm - so in total it was 4.5hours of hiking! After being so grateful to reach d ground again n buy some drinks in convenient store, we visited the waterfall. FYI, Yongmasan waterfall is the highest artificial waterfall in Asia but but but it’s only operated in several hours - u need to check d detail in KTO website. And as we expected, since today is chuseok holiday, the waterfall didnt work, so we just did some chitchats n took some pics then going back using Yongmasan subway line 7.

Let me shared the lesson learned from this experience: make sure u did navering first before taking any decision for which route u’re going to take (korean loves to blogs, they share everything in their blog, but it’s all in korean) and for people who isnt that good with their balance like me, it is essential to have a hiking stick with u.

Last, it was a great experience and look forward for my next hiking journey next month!! *there’re still long lists of mountains to hike here in seoul :)*

“All of a sudden, my phone rang and I went to be an extra with Alba ㅋㅋㅋ We did cosplay, acted
like we were taking photographs, then cut! You’ll try to watch the web
drama, Dr. Ian, right? Cool
It was really nice seeing Sandara Park and receiving her cute double
V pose at Yongma Land, while Kim Young Kwang? We saw him too!!! Super
awesome celebrities!!!”